The Downward Descent
by unamuerte
Summary: A séance. A lullaby. A pervert's epiphany. Ten drabbles sweeping around the Sweeney Todd world.
1. The Seance

**A/N: This is a collection of drabbles to amuse you all in between uploading my other fics. Not sure if they qualify as drabbles, but oh well.**

**~The Séance~**

The circle was lit.

It was a dead winter night. The city had shut itself up. No one stopped in or passed them by.

The candles were laid across the bare floor in the shopfront.

"You sure we gonna do this love?" Nellie asked, glancing up and down the floorboards. Her eyes swam over the flecks and specks of blood collected there.

Sweeney nodded. His hands were still coated with the blood of fifteen men. And yet somehow he still believed his wife would want to speak to him, wherever she was, blowing somewhere over the hills and beyond the trees in that grey land of the dead.

"What comes next?"

The baker breathed, closing her eyes as the breath of the night shot through the open door. London was alive with invisible life. The best they could do was to savour it.

"We must call 'er up."

Sweeney stared at the black circle drawn in the middle of the floor.

They had moved the heavy kitchen table, and now sweat coated him as a second skin. The baker also was drenched, her pale arms like melted candle wax.

She pouted, kneeling on the edge of the circle. "That's right love," she urged, taking his arm and putting the blonde lock of hair in the centre. "Let it go."

Sweeney grimaced. He allowed the lock to rest there. "My love."

"She's gone," the baker said, "but I s'pose they never quite go. Mrs Mooney an' me did this little ritual for Albert when 'e passed on six months ago."

He had enough of her chit chat. The night was stronger than them both, and if it could not call Lucy up now, it never would.

"I blow the candles out?" The barber looked at her uncertainly.

The baker nodded, drawing her arms close around his. "Not before you burn the hair."

He lifted the lock as carefully as if he were slicing a vein, and held it over the nearest candle.

The yellow lock met the bright flame, and they fused together until the hair singed and turned to ash. He imagined Lucy's fragrance unfurling into him, but the scent never came.

"That's it," came the low tones.

He became aware of a woman holding him. Which one, he was unsure.

Their eyes shut simultaneously, as the wind drew right around them both.

"She's here," Sweeney said, mouth quivering in the same candle-like taper.

"I know," she echoed. Her lips were close to his mouth.

In another lifetime, they might meet.

His eyes flew open. "The candles, Mrs Lovett, quickly! Before Lucy is lost forever!"

You don't know she already is, Mrs Lovett thought miserably. She helped him blow the candles out anyway, all twenty four of them.

"Now you talk to her," she instructed. "Prob'ly best not ter mention the Judge," she added.

The barber blew, and the last candle went out.

This is what comes of loving the dead, the widow thought, scraping her knees against the frozen floor.

**~*~*~*~*~*~**


	2. Shy

**~Shy~**

The young man entered the shop clean shaven and smartly dressed.

He liked flowers, and had a small yellow rose pinned to his front pocket.

"Don't you dare go for him Nellie."

"Why not?" The young girl had her face pressed against the shop window, staring at the young man ordering a fresh batch of pies for his niece's christening.

"You got your eye on him?" She turned back to her rosy-cheeked friend. Nellie didn't know it, but in twenty years time her friend would go by the name Mrs Mooney.

"'Course not, just you look at him! He's too shy." The young Mrs Mooney blew her cheeks at the tall, slightly awkward figure that was Benjamin Barker.

He took the tray and slipped the correct amount of money to Nellie's mother.

"Nice to see you Mr Barker," said the older woman, wiping her hands on her apron and toddling off into the depths of the kitchen larder.

The young barber swivelled with startling rapidity. He knew the girls were staring at him through the window.

"Hello," he began, and stopped, because he did not know what else to say. He locked eyes with _her_ instead. The young girl had never been shy. She was not like other girls he knew.

Nellie grinned widely, and blew a cheeky kiss. "That's for you, Mr B."

"Thank you Miss," said Benjamin, ducking his head and racing himself and the tray out the door. Halfway down the street he nearly tripped and tossed the tray.

Next time, he might get up the courage to ask her name. Next time.

"Told you," said the young Mrs Mooney.

***~*~*~*~*~*~**


	3. Swamped

**~Swamped~**

When a person learns by feeling, you cannot reason your way out from the swamp.

Sweeney knew this better than anyone. So did the baker.

Both were governed by their own chain of reasoning. Reasoning that was feeling. It was their own strange reasoning, all the same.

"It's another day," Nellie said, sitting by the window sill with her nightgown wrapped around her. "But it's different…somethin's gone."

There were blood spots on the bed.

She felt her neck, where he'd marked her with the blade.

Sweeney kept a pace away from her, his bare form revealed under the moon.

She didn't dare look at him, now that the deed was done.

"It's been a long time… for us both. There is no shame, my pet."

At last, his words dragged her out of the swamp.

She looked at him sharply, unravelling her arms from her body. The moon cast a carousel of dust mites around them both. "What about Lucy?"

"The memories are drowning... let me forget, Eleanor," he began, reaching once more for the barber and her wax-like skin.

*** * ***


	4. Worth

**A/N: Sorry I'm taking my time, the Magic Teabag and Beyond Redemption will be updated within the next few days.**

**~Worth~**

She could work out complex recipes in half-an-hour and alter them in seconds to suit her needs, and yet he considered her mindless.

She could lift sacks of heavy potatoes on her back, all for the pies, and yet she was a frail, weak thing.

She could stare for endless hours at the stars on moonless nights, contemplating the way of the world, and yet she had no soul.

According to Albert, women had no worth.

Mrs Lovett was in the kitchen again, dicing onions and chopping pig's hooves.

It was always the same on Fridays. Albert's favourite meal, solely for Fridays.

"Is it ready Nell?" Albert was already seated at the dinner table, downing half the glass of gin. His third, mind – and it took nearly three times that to get him stone cold drunk.

"Nearly," she heaved, wondering how much more knife-sweating the babe in her belly could bear. It was her third pregnancy, and the child seemed healthy. So far.

She put down the knife, and paused to give it a tentative pat. It was a little parasite, chewing away at the gurgling bits of food down there.

Ten minutes later, the shout came again, like a dreaded call to arms.

"Ready?"

"Nearly!" she sang out, her voice too sing-song for her own liking. "If he leaves me be," she muttered to her belly, wondering how she could stand another Friday with those love birds.

The door bell jingled, as if deliberately taunting her. It was another customer, wanting a pie.

"Take it, and get lost," she said gruffly, dumping the spare pie in a paper bag and shoving it into the man's shaking hands. He made himself scarce alright.

"Customer service at its best I see, wife," came her husband from the table.

"Shut it Albert." The woman wiped sweat from her neck and brow, closing her eyes to wonder if she could call up the smells and sights of last spring, and found she couldn't.

"Be nice to Mr and Mrs Barker," Albert cautioned, chuckling from the living room. He knew her moods like clock-work.

Nellie wasn't nasty on purpose. Everyone but Albert knew she was in love with Mr Barker, for heaven's sake! But somehow to speak and talk to Lucy's husband, to have to act polite when all she wished was to sit by his side and touch his hand, well, it almost as tormenting as her morning sickness. Cruelty was her only defence.

She heard them now, coming down the stairs. "Ready!" she shouted to her husband, taking out the steaming entrée to the table. She pretended not to see Mr Barker leading his also heavily pregnant wife down the stairs. Pretended, and failed.

"Why did you get it for me?" Lucy asked as she moved placidly down the stairs with the necklace around her neck.

"You are worth it," Benjamin answered, taking her hand as if they were at holy communion, or worse still, the wedding altar.

***~ *~ *~**


	5. Wrong

**~Wrong~**

As a talented young barber, he had his entire future before him.

Why then, did he feel gripped by dread, as he raced up the stairs with the flowers cradled in his arms?

He turned the knob on the door, and it swung before him and let the light seep over him, he knew.

This tumult inside him was love's doing, all love.

Before Lucy, the perils of loneliness had been too much to bear.

Now, the pleasures of love were worse. He could not stand to see her cry.

Lucy was standing by the cot, stroking and singing to their child. She had a very throaty voice for such a woman. It wasn't soothing, but it seemed to sooth their child.

"We will have this forever," Benjamin promised, lingering on the threshold with a fresh bunch of wildflowers.

It had been their first fight. Lucy looked at him, and her smile filled the room, brighter than the wallpaper. "It was not right to raise your voice, Ben, especially in front of Johanna."

"I was wrong," Benjamin said, crossing the room sturdily and presenting her the flowers like a knight errant giving her a garland token of his love. "I don't wish to quarrel. We have all eternity to be together, Lucy. We mustn't waist a minute of it."

How wrong he had been, Sweeney thought bitterly, staring at the broken doll in the empty crib, fifteen years later.

***~ *~ ***


	6. Scatterheart

**A/N: The title chapter and lyrics Mrs Lovett sings are from Bjork's song "Scatterheart."**

**_~Scatterheart~_**

She knew all the old lullabies, and Toby had heard none of them.**_  
_**

"Black night is fallen, the sun 'as gone ter bed. The innocent are dreamin', as you should sleepy head, sleeeeepy head, slee-eep-y head…."

Mrs Lovett took the covers and threw them high over Toby's head, so that his eyes were swamped by the image of dozens of flowers and birds descending down from the ceiling.

He smiled, won over by the vision of paradise in his drifting off to sleep.

If only his dreams were as beautiful as the blanket covers.

"No gin tonight, love," Mrs Lovett promised, pecking him on the cheek and closing the door lightly.

It was the third night that week he'd been allowed to sleep in her room.

He slept easy at first, with the flowers over his eyes and the warmth of his mum's lips lingering on his face as she kissed him goodnight.

But that soon faded, just as the sun died each night, and Toby was left conjuring up old faces and night terrors that had plagued him in the poor house.

Toby made a game of guessing the sounds:

First came the thudding.

Then the glass breaking.

A woman cried.

Someone was shoved against a wall.

She came in when it was proper dark, with her eye black and her lip bloody.

She whispered in darkness, hugging him and lying on the springy mattress with matted hair.

She spoke, and the world got light again, even just for a little while.

"You know love," she began, drawing her arms around his head in the tangled mess of blankets, "I love you 'sif you wos me own boy. There's nothin' I wouldn't do for you love. No matter how bad it gets out in that bad world, no matter wot you've lived through, you've come to a good place here."

"Wos it 'im that mader yer face bleed?" Toby knew he had a safe place here, but he didn't know about his mum.

"Hush, me dear," she half-sang, and moments later the boy tasted salt dripping onto his face. "There's nothin' I'd love more, than spare you from me burdens darlin'."

They were fairytale words. A shiver ran through his body. It wasn't him.

She was shivering. Not from the cold. From the darkness of Sweeney Todd's eyes.

He countered the darkness, pressing his small hand around her eyes to block out the images that burned there. "If I only could mum, only if you'd let me, I'd shelter us. Will you let me?"

She closed her eyes, wrapped her arms around him tighter, and nodded.

They both tried to dream. Count sheep, some such nonsense.

But there was crying in their dreams, and women falling, children dying, and no matter how much they tried, neither of them could wake up.

**~*~*~*~*~*~**


	7. Limits

**A/N: Thanks to Sakura Katana: Nice to know you like the song! It's really different, that's why I lovett. **

**F8WUZL8: Don't get me wrong, I love badboy Sweeney portrayals (I should know =p) but I like exploring this "darker" side, as you say ;)**

** AngelofDarkness1605: I hope you don't have to rush to uni tomorrow, I had to do that today because I was trying to email you/write more Sweeney ;)**

** linalove: Thanks for reviewing as always! I'm glad you don't mind reading these oneshots, sad/depressing as they may be =)**

**Four days till Alice for me!!!**

**~Limits~**

"Don't leave Mr T, please."

She had half his shirt twisted up in her arm, half-grovelling by the door.

Even as a child, Nellie Lovett had never understood limits. She had to have it all, staring up at the moonlight, watching the sun rise and set, and still not understanding why she felt tired afterwards. If her body allowed her, this woman would have lived a thousand lives and watched a thousand suns rise and fall. But London only allowed one life per street, and very little love.

He shrugged her off.

"One word," she begged, planting herself between the door and his freedom.

He turned with his traveller's bag shouldered high on his back. "Get away," he snarled. It was tempting to take his blade and slaughter her then and there in the dead moonlight. But a small voice whispered in his head: _you'll never get the Judge that way, if they find a dead woman lying in Fleet Street come morning._

He thought of taking her body and burying it. But that wouldn't do. He could just burn it instead. Butcher her and burn it.

'Wot you gonna do without me Mr T? Can't no one love you like me," she babbled, "No one else in the _world _loves you. Not even _her." _Mrs Lovett clamped her hand over her mouth. _Oops._

She had told him. Fool fool fool. In a fit of desperation. Hoping to win his love. Hoping to draw him back to the dreams that living people dreamt. An end to all this mirror-smashing.

Sweeney's eyes were already full of that irretrievable darkness. It was too late for them both, really. It was true, he considered, in his last moment of sanity. She really did love him more than any other woman he had ever known. Lucy would not have gone through such horrors, all for the love of him.

Perhaps that was exactly the point.

"Sometimes, my pet," Sweeney said mercilessly, lifting the blade high, "love is not enough."

*** ~*~ ***


	8. Childish Love

**A/N: Hey all. Back again!**

**EminentlyPractical: Thanks for reading, btw, this chapter will be right up your alley, I think ;) I wrote it before you suggested it, so I must be psychic!**

**primadonagirl999: Sorry if some of these chapters are confusing, but it's not my usual style. I need lots of words to express myself, so that's why they're more like puzzles than stories O_O**

**Sakura Katana: wow, I did kill Mrs Lovett, didn't I? This is a bit more depressing than I usually write, but the next epic fic I'm writing will be more sweenett-like. I'll send you an email about what I thought of Alice, I saw it yesterday! What did you think of it?**

**F8WUZL8: LOL if ONLY Mrs Lovett had taken your sound advice!!!**

**AngelofDarkness1605: As far as sweenett goes, I have to be in the mood. But these chaps were never intended to be positive =O**

**linalove: Unfortunately, these multi-shots are all a little sad! But there is more, right now! =)**

**~Childish love~**

She was a child. A little girl, almost.

"How old is she?" the Beadle asked, fascinated by the long neck, the slight curves, the dancing eyes. Well, the eyes didn't dance very much anymore. Not since the Barber went away, and left the blonde Rapunzel sighing and dazed up in her tower.

"That is not of your concern," frowned Judge Turpin, pushing the Beadle out of the way to get a better sight of his object of affection. He felt like a child himself, out of his depth, swimming in deep waters, so to speak. "How do I win her, Beadle? She will not look at me. All she does is speak _his_ name. The filthy beard-cutter."

"Time, my lord, _time. _A woman's affection is like a fine wine; you must first lock it up, keep it out of sight from the rest of the world for ten years or so, and then it will shower its treasure upon you."

"Hmm." Turpin considered this wisdom carefully for a few moments. He quickly turned back to that window, where the angel paced and sent prayers up to the heavens. He pressed the Beadle for more. "And the letters I write, what of them? She must not read them, for I haven't received word for three long months. I am out of my mind with love for her!"

_More like with lust for her, _the Beadle thought, tapping his cane against the brick wall on the deserted street. Bamford kept his thoughts private. It wouldn't do to have the Judge take away his benefits. "Perhaps a direct approach is more effective, my lord?"

The Judge didn't tear his eyes from that little window, and the beautiful enchantress who kept him locked there day after day, night after night, as if he were Sir Lancelot courting the doomed Lady of Shallot. "Perhaps you are right," he answered, his eyes catching sight of a woman and husband laughing down the other end of the street. The woman had a yellow gown, and a black mask. "Off to a masquerade," he observed…

The idea sprung upon him then, and all his problems seemed miraculously solved. "She will come to me Beadle," the Judge affirmed. "She will come tonight."

**~*~*~*~*~**


	9. Future

**A/N: Thanks so much for your patience! I've got another long Sweenett fic ready in the works after this! **

**the-sadisticalovett-nutcase: Funny isn't it, how awful the Judge is at making decisions, considering he is a Judge! =)**

**Sakura Katana: I've seen Alice now! I thought Helena made the movie! But more about that later, *cough cough***

**It'sOnlyForever.x: Thanks for the run-down on your favourites, I couldn't remember them! Alice was good, it didn't live up completely to my expectations, but I did enjoy it. Have you seen it yet?**

**EminentlyPractical: Warning: Don't hurt me! You won't be happy with me for this chapter, but I promise I'll make up for it in the Magic Teabag fic ;) Yeah, I can't seem to shake creepy Judge T from my fics =D**

**AngelofDarkness1605: "Who would have thought (the Beadle) could actually think?" LOL. Don't worry, my brain is on strike permanently these days it seems. ;) But you've been posting more often lately too, so maybe we're both encouraging each other?**

**F8WUZL8: I agree, I don't really give two hoots about Johanna either. Hmmm, well, you sort of predicted this chap, but I'm not saying anymore!**

**linalove: Good to hear from you! Thanks =)**

**~Future~**

"The future is yours," Sweeney said, throwing the chair against the wall on the way out.

He was right. The future was in her hands. It was her child, no matter what. He might have helped her in that area, but it was not his. They had made the pact, and he had signed away any rights or hope for himself in that future.

"It is mine," Mrs Lovett realised, putting her hands against her cool face. She had not felt like this for many months. She was returning. Eleanor Lovett had given up so much for the promise of Sweeney's child – no, that was a lie. She hadn't cared for the child. It was his_ love_ she had courted.

And now she had it. It flowed through her veins day and night since that one night locked in her room on her bed. It was a curse now. She would share his poison forever, and so would the child.

"I will never love you," he had said to her when she had announced to him the child was alive fourth months into her pregnancy. He didn't give her a chance to reply, of course.

So Nellie didn't give him any more chances that night. She went out onto the street, bought a bottle of cyanide, and did what Lucy had never been strong enough to finish all those years ago.

"I'll sing for you, my sweet," she said to her unborn child as they fell swinging toward the heavy night ground.

The last thing she saw was the moon, half-shielded by the roof of her shop, bobbing up above the sky. She heard no more.

**~*~*~*~**


	10. King of the Kingdom

**~King of the Kingdom~**

His memories seeped in from all corners of the barber shop, like the end rays of dust mites spinning down from the ceiling.

You couldn't see them, but they were there, every night at dusk when the window let the sun in onto that once yellow wallpaper.

"I am alive," Sweeney said, rubbing his fingers over the coarse walls.

He was alive, and in that desolate landscape, he was King.

**~*~*~*~**

**Because EminentlyPractical begged me, I'm extending this fic up to chapter 13. I think Tim Burton would somehow approve. P.S. The last three will be requests, randomly selected =D**

**EminentlyPractical: She doesn't die here!!! I think it's time to give Sweeney a dose of his own medicine....**

**Sakura Katana: This chapter is for you and Eminently, because if I kill of Mrs Lovett anymore you're going to come through the computer and strangle me, I can tell =p**

**F8WUZL8: Poor Lovett indeed! (Thankfully she got a break here)**

**AngelofDarkness1605: I hope you aren't too mentally exhausted right now, because here's another chap! WOOT! At least your test is over, yay!! Btw, "she heard no more" just is my way of saying she couldn't hear any more sounds/noises, but she could still see her surroundings as she faded into death. It's an interesting theory, when you die, which senses go first? O_O Yeah, you know the fic! It's the one you helped me to come up with the title. It's going up on Friday, so I need to figure out the title soon!**

**Nellie Lovett Gracey: Alex I agree with your thoughts on Alice. I actually *gasp: Off with her head!* didn't like the Hatter as much as I wanted to, but I Loved Stayne/Iracebeth. I so desperately wanted them to be a pair that I could not BELIEVE the ending (although I should have seen it coming, Knave, anyone?)**

**linalove: Lina, I happened to write this all in one day, so I might have been in a bad/depressed mood when I wrote it? Remember, you get to request the rest!**

**the-sadisticalovett-nutcase: Well, funny what you mentioned in your last review. There's a hint there for my newest Long story, which I'm posting up on Friday, but shhhhhh ;)**


	11. The Fair

**~The Fair~**

He couldn't be persuaded to love such a childish affair. "I won't enjoy myself," Benjamin said stiffly, looking down at his wife in her sick bed.

Lucy beamed weakly with the colour jaundice staining her round face. "But Johanna will. Off you go, Sir Knight," she said, wringing her hand gently from his grasp. Even inside, in bed, she insisted on wearing her bonnet.

A little like a child, Ben thought, turning his head from the yellow scene. He endured it for Lucy's sake. It was the colour of the Plague. And sickness.

He nodded. "Very well."

The pram was a spectacular cream white, decked with pink and yellow ribbons, and inside it, his gift with the gold hair. "Let's depart then, shall we my little princess?"

Infant Johanna, looking wide-eyed and placid like a blessed child from a medieval portrait.

"Don't read," Benjamin warned his wife, propped against the ruffled pillow with a romance book in hand. It would make her already ill mind spin.

She waited blankly until he'd eased the pram down all the stairs, then shouted out: "don't spoil her Ben!"

He didn't intend to spoil her. He thought of his wife all the way down to the end of Fleet Street. When the fever took her, and she muttered strange fears, he had no words.

He had promised them all a trip to the Florist the following Thursday, if Lucy had recovered.

The pram wheeled its own path through the crowd of fair-goers. He was searching out the woman who wasn't sick.

The carousel music followed them, until Johanna cried. He bought pink fairy floss to calm her.

"Fairy dust," he said to his gurgling child with impish fingers outstretched.

"Foolin' her already, sir?" The woman had her back turned, and was shooting brightly coloured balls into the mouths of clowns.

"All of us must have our fantasies." He began rocking the pram in time with the spinning of the carousel.

"Wot's yours?" she said sharply, turning haphazardly from the yawning clowns.

"Don't laugh." Ben gave her the pram. She took it lightly, taking no interest in the child inside. She might have been rolling dough.

"Wot?" She pretended to laugh, but the sham was already prevalent. The whole fair was a sham, designed to fool them all into believing they could spin their own invisible kingdoms.

"When I was a boy, I imagined this fair was faery-land, and that I wandered through on a dream somehow."

"It's a nice little dream, love," she said, moving one arm from the pram to him.

He didn't mention that he'd seen her too, a little girl in black lace, with a face as deep as the woods.

She'd been a part of the magic, and always would.

"Excuse me," said a distinguished voice behind them, and the two friends were forced to part.

Nellie frowned. "It's that awful Judge Turpin," she said, turning her nose up at the red-coated man and his yellow-haired companion, the stick-wielding Beadle.

"They say he's broken men's necks wif that stick," she observed.

They kept their bodies shielded around the pram, until the two men had disappeared into the faint lights.

"He won't break mine," said Ben, hoping to elicit that famous baker smile that men across Fleet Street laboured for.

She smiled, but they were no longer quite in faery land.

**~*~*~*~**

**A/N: For Nellie Lovett Gracey and Eminently Practical. I tried to do a combination of both your requests. Sorry I couldn't make it happier than this, but at least Lucy misses out on the Fair!**

**Sakura Katana: Ha ha good request. I think that will be the final chapter, since I have indeed killed her off quite enough for now. ;)**

**Nellie Lovett Gracey: I know! I feel like such an idiot, because I couldn't see Stayne was going to betray her until it happened! I was fooled just like the RQ =O**

**the-sadisticalovett-nutcase: Yep, he's alive! I hope you're enjoying your break - I have a driving lesson to look forward to in less than an hour!**

**F8WUZL8: Thanks for the challenge! I think I know what to do with your request - leave it with me!**

**EminentlyPractical: Lol I love the Burton-in-the-park image ;) Again, sorry I didn't do more with your request, but I did put Lucy in the sick bed as way of compromise. =D**

**AngelofDarkness1605: Yes, I decided to make this chapter a tad longer! Well really it's not a very common expression, even in English. I sort of stuffed it in there to be obscure, so your confusion was legitimate! Still addicted to Patience? =p**


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